Chapter 8: This Soft Exterior
Claire rolled onto her side, burrowing her face into the pillow. A shiver went through her, skin breaking out in goosebumps. She patted the mattress blindly, letting out a soft grunt when she couldn't find her blanket. Too tired to look beyond the bed, she curled around herself, rolling to her stomach and tucking her bare arms underneath her body. In the back of her mind, she wondered why her bedroom smelled like salt-water.
Memories came rushing back. With a gasp, Claire launched herself out of bed. The distance to the ground was farther than she thought; she landed hard, hitting her elbow and biting her tongue by accident.
"Ow." She wiped her mouth, noticing a small smear of blood on the back of her hand. Her right elbow throbbed awfully but at least it wasn't broken. She looked up to find she'd been sleeping in a bunk bed - the upper bunk - and it was the big kind that was meant for adults, not the kiddie stuff. She was lucky she didn't break her face with that little swan dive.
Claire flexed her left arm, smiling despite the pain but mostly because of it. After all, there was no pain in Heaven.
She stood on shaky legs, studying her surroundings. The room was drab and cramped. There was no sunlight coming in on account of the room not having any windows. A tired-looking light bulb hung from the ceiling, close to burning out but still managing to produce a dim light. The bunk bed took out most of the space. Opposite the bed, maybe two feet away, stood a tall metal locker (empty, she noted). There was also a folding table that was attached to the wall, and a little stool next to it.
She looked down at herself, surprised to find that she was in the same clothes she'd been wearing a year ago, except that her purple hoodie was gone. She remembered it getting splattered with her mother's blood. The murdering bastards had turned to her next, strapping her down to a table kicking and screaming like a banshee. Then, out of nowhere, Castiel had appeared. They never stood a chance. He was about to free her when… she couldn't remember what happened, it was just a blur of light and blood. She woke up in a place called Heaven and had been there ever since.
Claire's shoes were gone, too. She was left in thick wool socks, a pair of ratty jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. She checked her pockets, finding a flattened matchbox and a strip of Big Red gum she'd been saving up all those months ago. With a shrug, she popped it into her mouth, chasing away the sleep-taste, and threw the wrappings on the ground.
The door was unlocked when she tried it. She found a long hallway with a lot of doors, all of them bearing little number signs. It looked a little like a hotel corridor if the owner thought plastic floors were all the rage and sometimes forgot to pay his utility bill. Most of the fluorescent lights above her were dead, a few blinking in and out. There were no windows in the corridor, either. Claire startled a little at a sudden loud knock, like metal settling down.
"This isn't creepy at all," she mumbled.
She opened the doors one by one, each of them revealing another identical room. There were more doors than the kids she left behind in Heaven, but maybe, Claire thought, if she woke up here, the others were around as well. She grew more anxious at the sight of each empty room before finally, almost at the end of the corridor, she found someone.
The person sleeping in the lower bunk was Mikey, the teenage boy who had shown up together with Enid's group. Sometimes it happened like that: a single community was cleared out of everyone underage, Heaven's version of No Child Left Behind.
Out of all of them, Mikey was the one she knew the least. The boy was a little younger than herself, with pale skin and a bad haircut. What was it with the boys in their group, anyway? Alright, fine, they had bigger problems, but if they ever made it out of this, Claire was going to run Mikey and Carl both with some scissors. Maybe their shared manpain could help resolve whatever tension was lurking there. Claire meant to ask, but somehow it always slipped her mind.
"Mikey?" Claire shook his shoulder, finding his skin cold to the touch. "C'mon, Mike," she said, shaking more firmly. He was lying on his back in plaid pajama pants, arms resting straight at his sides. His thin chest wasn't rising and falling like it was supposed to - everything about him was far too still.
Teeth worrying her lip, Claire reached under his jaw to check for a pulse. Over a minute had passed before she felt it, and another minute until the next beat came. She exhaled slowly, dropping her hand. Whatever curse they were under, it was clear she wasn't going to wake them up without some serious intervention.
"I'll be back," she promised, slipping out the door and making sure to shut it behind her. She might have been out of the game for a while but she still remembered that ghouls couldn't open doors. Who even knew if any were around? Lying there as he was, Mikey was an easy meal. And come to think of it, Claire wasn't much better off herself.
I need to find a weapon, she thought.
An idea came to her mind: she should mark the rooms where the other kids were, so she could find them again easily if she had to. Claire popped the gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the door. Kind of gross, but it did the job. Better than trying to remember all the room numbers, at least.
"I need to find a damn pen, too," she said out loud.
The end of the corridor brought a few interesting discoveries. She found a little one-person-sized elevator. She dismissed it almost immediately: the last thing she needed was to get stuck there. What caught her attention, however, was the man-sized sign by the elevator. She leaned in close, squinting in order to make out the words in the weak light.
"I'm on a ship," she realized. The floor beneath her feet felt surprisingly steady.
It must be huge, Claire thought, because there were a lot of levels (or decks, as the sign said). According to the sign, she was located fairly low at deck B, where the "temp. workers cabins" were located. The decks below seemed to contain mostly machinery and other technical sounding titles. She guessed she needed to go up instead. Luckily, where there was an elevator, there were also stairs. She found the entrance to the stairway at the next door.
Claire made another interesting discovery just beyond the stairway entrance: a large box hanging from the wall - a fire-aid. The box had a glass covering that bore the words push in case of emergency. Well, she had an emergency. The glass broke with little effort, caving forward easily and almost noiselessly like it was probably meant to.
"Hello beautiful," Claire all but purred and plucked the axe from its hooks.
It was fairly light, she found, testing its balance. She checked the blade part, finding it duller than she'd like. A weak weapon is better than no weapon at all, but she still had no idea what sort of enemy she was about to face. How strong were the Zanna, exactly? She had a feeling she was going to find out. The dead were another potential problem, of course. if there were any ghouls around, she hoped they'd be rotten. Rotting ghouls had soft skulls.
The level above (C-Deck: Cabins A-D, Recreation Room, Gymnasium) was just another long corridor with personal cabins for the most part. The cabins were a lot more lived-in, the crew's personal belongings scattered all around as if most of them had left in a hurry. She found a black marker, which she used on a couple of doors (Jake and Annabelle) and a box of stale chocolate bars that she chose to eat immediately.
She didn't realize it before, but she was starving. Come to think of it, Claire remembered she'd been very hungry the day her mother died. They both hadn't eaten in days. Possibly, that feeling stayed frozen until she woke up.
Oddly, the higher she went, the darker the decks seemed to be. The higher decks had much better accommodations overall (Claire was kind of peeved she'd been stuck in the crappy level). The cabins were larger, with a single bed and an en-suite bathroom for each.
In one of the spacious rooms she found Carl. He was lying perfectly still, exactly like Mikey did, dressed in a white t-shirt and sweatpants. Like Mikey, he was also cold to the touch. He seemed to breathe, but only every other minute. Claire barely noticed all of that.
"What happened to you?" she whispered, staring at the bandage covering the right side of his face. Of course, Carl didn't respond. For the first time, Claire was angry at herself for insisting the rest of them stay behind. The silence was unnerving and finding her friends' sleeping, helpless forms shook her more than she'd ever admit.
Like she did for the others, Claire painted an X sign on Carl's door. And angry sounding scream startled her; the marker fell, one edge of the X smearing down the door. She gripped her axe tightly and made her way down the corridor. Following the scream was a loud crash and a pained cry. It was all coming from behind a large door labeled Kitchen & Pantry.
Claire dropped down to her hands and knees, peeking under the door gap. She couldn't see much, but this close she could hear a lot better. There were two men in the kitchen. One was wearing crocs, of all things. The other was hidden from her, but she could hear his pained groans.
Crocs was saying, "I wish it didn't have to be this way, buddy. We make a great team."
"You tricked me," gasped the injured man, whose voice Claire recognized. It was Brian.
"Eh," Crocs shuffled his feet. "I told a few white lies. Really, we were both getting what we wanted, weren't we?" He continued, ignoring Brian's pained no's, "you were living the dream, babysitting all those kids. I mean, a Zanna's dream-life is kind of weird but I'm not judging! We are all just as the humans made us, right?" he sighed wistfully. "We can't change what we are, buddy. Alright, I tricked you, but I was doing you a favor. Out there? You were wasting away. I gave you the power to be the protector you always wanted to be. Sure, the kids came and went but that's nothing new for your kind. That's the beauty of it, you've been doing just this your entire existence." Crocs' voice seemed to perk up a little.
"No," Brian gasped. "No. I'm a Zanna, a Zanna. We help kids, we help them... until they don't need us... anymore. We don't deliver them to be butchered."
"Oh, come on, that's a bit harsh," Crocs protested. "It was very humane. Humane, funny word, isn't it? Free-range, organic…" he carried on. "If you think about it, I'm practically a vegetarian."
He's been eating us, Claire realized in horror.
Brian let out a sob. "I revoke it."
"Ex-cu-se me?" Crocs gaped.
"I revoke it. I know you can't-" Brian's breath rattled, and a long moment passed before he composed himself. "-feed without my per-" a gasp, "permission."
"It doesn't work like that, you silly creature," Crocs said, sounding angry. "You can't un-gift a gift. You gave them away fair and square."
"I didn't give them to you!" Brian cried, and suddenly he was up, his feet appearing in Claire's line of vision. The two men, creatures, fought. It was obvious Brian was losing badly, even if she could barely see it. It was over quickly: Crocs was standing over a sprawled Brian. Claire managed to see a glimpse of his face before Crocs dragged him out of sight. She heard a door slamming and then a deadbolt locking.
"Stay there and think about what you've done," Crocs grumbled.
With a sinking heart, Claire realized he was coming her way. She scrambled back to her feet, flattening her back against the wall and waiting for the door to open. She gripped the axe tightly and swung it with all her strength.
The sharper end embedded itself in Crocs' chest. For a moment they both stared at each other in surprise, Claire's fingers still wrapped tightly around the axe handle. A smile crept up the man's face, twisting his bulbous cheeks.
"Hello little girl," he said, mouth full of pointed little teeth. "What are you doing out of bed?" The axe was still stuck in his chest but he paid it no mind, like he couldn't even feel it.
Claire tried to run, but she only managed to turn her back before his hand was gripping a fistful of her hair. She screamed, half in anger, half in fear, and tried to drive her good elbow into his face. He used his grip on her hair to all but fling her against the nearest wall. The hit knocked her to the ground. A moment later she was scrambling to her feet. Blood dripped from her scalp and down her shirt; Crocs had uprooted a clump of her hair.
She wasn't fast enough to dodge his next assault. He was faster than his heavy frame suggested, grabbing hold of her by the arm and pushing her inside the kitchen. She half stumbled, was half pushed, against the industrial kitchen counter. She was barely able to contemplate running again when she felt a hand on the back of her head slamming her down against the counter. It must have knocked her out for a few seconds, because when she came to, Crocs was glaring down at her, framed by a doorway.
"You only have yourself to blame, you know."
"Fuck you," she snarled.
"Rude." Crocs all but pouted. He sighed, adding, "so, can I be honest with you? I'm stuffed. Seriously, can't have another bite right now. I need to watch my figure, you know?" He patted his bulging stomach, chuckling. "So… you'll just have to wait your turn."
"Fuck. You."
Crocs pursed his lips primly. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "I guess I can have some dessert later. You," he pointed at her, "be a good girl and wait for me here. I need to make sure none of the other little birds flew the coop." And with that, he pushed the heavy door closed. Claire heard the deadbolt effectively sealing the room and trapping her inside in total, absolute darkness.